TASK 8 - LEADERSHIP STYLES

Hello, I’m Pablo García and I’m here to present some ideas that are going to change how this school is running.

First of all, I’d like to know if you have ever seen a snowfall I thought so…you will see later why...

We dream of getting in touch with our students to create a new type of leadership in our school: a participative leadership.For those who don’t know what that means, what we desire is that the leader is an actual leader, but doesn’t impose any rules.

We believe in a school created in meetings called SITE-BASED, where EVERYONE has their own opinion as well as a place and time to present such opinion, which will be respected and ALWAYS taken into account, to create rules with the opinions of other agents apart from the leader, which are families, teachers and students.

Ladies and gentlemen!!listen closely, THE RULES are going to be created BY and FOR those within the school, searching for THE BEST present and future for our students.

Why do we believe that a change is necessary? In the past, the school has worked with authoritarian leaderships. The ghost of Francis French, the Authoritarian, is still prevalent in many schools so, we are going to find the ghost and let him explain why he is so authoritarian and, OF COURSE, WE ARE GOING TO LISTEN TO HIM, because we believe that EVERYONE has something important to say from which we can learn, at least, the way we do not want to be. And not only Francis’s, but also YOUR OPINION , YOUR EMOTIONS AND YOUR FEELINGS are as important to us as any of the goals we seek to achieve.

For us, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!! The most important thing is your WELFARE.

As well, we do not want to show FALSE faces here to convince you of working, just like Transactional leaders do, rewarding you just because you need a salary in exchange for your productivity.

We want that our teachers work based on their MORALS AND PRINCIPLES, not only wanting the money at the end of the month. The TRUE heart of this party is bringing a model based on SITE-BASES to make decisions where everyone is not only taken into account BUT is also listened to and respected, whatever he or she says.

Of course, we believe that a better world is reachable, but the way to achieve it is not by eliminating all rules, like Transformational leaders would like, BUT establishing those rules between the people who will be following them.

The ideal path to achieve the perfect school is to build it ourselves!!

Ladies and gentlemen, with YOUR help, we will engage in a process in which we will work together, only for YOUR benefit. Transformational candidates believe in love. YES!We too believe in love, but love doesn’t exist by itself. Love is something we need to create. It’s not just a word, LOVE is something BIGGER.As the Greek said: “AGAPA”, what stands for “more than love”. To create love we have to have our feet on the ground and our minds in the stars, but above all, we need YOU.Would you like to be a part of this team?

We are here to solve problems not to create them

As for the common issue of a teacher missing his first lesson because his mother is in the hospital. We know that the teacher isn’t able to attend some classes because he needs to take care of his mother during some time in the mornings. Instead of threatening the teacher, I would meet when possible with all the teachers, giving them an opportunity to change their schedules, both in order to help this teacher and also to make sure that others that could be in this situation or a similar one have the chance of being helped too.

Even though teachers will have the most benefits, it doesn’t mean we have forgotten about the students. We have thought of new measures that will make their school life more enjoyable, with activities THEY will decide. These measures include:

Surveys at the start of the school year, asking the students what activities they would like the school to offer: football, art, music, or basketball.

Free weekly cinema sessions, with films for all publics.

Opening the school during the summer both for students and teachers, offering not only activities, but also food each day for a reduced price.

And our most important and innovative feature… NO EXAMS.

ladies and gentlemen!! We seek to create people with free, and creative minds and critical thinking, not machine-brains with the only objective of vomiting all the information they memorized the night before in order to get their good mark.

Everything I spoke about may seem like a dream, a fantasy, a utopia. But do you remember when I asked you about the snowfall at the beginning? What happens when it snows?

As we know, every snowfall starts with a single snowflake, but one next to another leads to the new snowy landscape we see. If you vote for me, every one of YOU, with the help of other snowflakes, will be part of this new landscape. Forging the leadership in this school the way you would like it to be.

Ladies and gentlemen!!! We want to listen to the reality you have kept inside your heart like a treasure.